Aging Campuses: Adults Head Back To School

July 03, 1996|By ROGERS WORTHINGTON Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — In 18th Century America, high schools were scarce, so 13- and 14-year-old boys from affluent families were packed off to colleges such as Harvard, William and Mary, Yale and Princeton, all founded between 1630 and 1750.

Then the average age of college students rose as 20-year-olds, their fathers' lands all passed on to older brothers, left the farm for the promise of higher education.

The age of college students has yo-yoed ever since. Now, in a development that is a snapshot of a much-transformed contemporary society, the graduates who have traipsed across stages and lawns throughout America in this commencement season are the oldest, on average, since national records began, say education experts.

And for the first time, it is women - now an estimated 65 percent of all ``adult'' students - who are the driving force behind the change.

``When we talk about undergraduates in America, it is no longer possible to guess the age of those students. That has been a dramatic development,'' said Harris Sussman, a Cambridge, Mass.-based futurist/consultant who specializes in higher education.

Nearly half of the nation's university students are 24 years old or older, according to a recent survey commissioned by the College Board, a national research and support association for member institutions. In some states, the average age, which includes full- and part-time students, graduate students, and undergraduates, is even higher. In New Mexico, for example, it is 29.2.

Though the popular image of the university student continues to be the fresh-faced coed cramming for exams in a cluttered dorm room, the modern undergraduate also might be a mother with kids and a full-time job living miles from campus or a man in midlife ready to overhaul his professional landscape.

In the last 20 years, the number of ``adult'' students has increased by 50 percent, the board found.

From the advent of classes at night, on weekends and even during lunch hours to later bookstore hours and day-care facilities, such as that at Northeastern Illinois University, colleges are increasingly tailoring themselves to accommodate the growth in what used to be called ``non-traditional'' students.

Under the old definition, that term meant older, often first-time students with shaky high school credentials. Now, the term also includes large numbers of returning students, who are either finishing a degree or getting another.

Driving the trend is the unprecedented influx of women, especially white women older than 30, according to the College Board's study.

``Women are more often in and out of the job market,'' said Carol Aslanian, director of adult learning services for the College Board and author of a forthcoming book on adult students. ``When they're out and want to come back ... they see education as necessary to help them see their way up the career ladder.''

The change also is being fueled by rapid technological change in the workplace, the increasing difficulty of supporting a family on one paycheck, the decline in the earning power of a high school diploma, corporate downsizing, the dissolution of the social contract between company and employee, and the increase in so-called contingent jobs and part-time jobs that offer little security.

In response, the number of affordable community colleges has increased dramatically over the last 40 years. There are more than 1,100 nationwide, roughly a third of all colleges, with an average student age of 29, according to the American Association of Community Colleges.

When her husband died of cancer in 1984, Valerie Beale, 39, of Park Forest, Ill., thought about getting a college degree, something she began but abandoned after graduating from high school in 1975, when she went to work, married and raised a family. In 1988, she enrolled as a part-time student and now plans on graduating next June with a degree in speech pathology from Governors State University, where the average age is 34.

Marilyn Andre, on the other hand, never began college. A former flower child of the '60s and twice divorced mother of two from Chicago Heights, Ill., she graduated from high school in 1967 and worked in a restaurant, insurance and graphics arts. Throughout, she thought about college, but she never enrolled.

``I was always afraid I would fail English 101,'' she said.

On June 2, at age 47, after seven years of part-time and a year and a half of full-time classes, she graduated from Governors State. Armed with a bachelor of arts degree in child psychology, she hopes to work with AmeriCorps, the national service corps, as a counselor, mentor and teacher.

For about 26 percent of adult students, returning to college means a graduate degree to enhance their careers, according to the College Board study. Often, employers - an estimated 40 percent, said Aslanian - will pay tuition costs.

Kimberly Davis, 27, a financial planner, is finishing a master's degree in finance at DePaul University while working full time for Waddell and Reed Inc.